Less than five months after her election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, University Professor Keren Rice has added another honour to her collection: the Pierre Chauveau medal of the Royal Society of Canada.

Fourteen University of Toronto faculty members — including 8 from the Faculty of Arts & Science — are among the 87 new Fellows announced this week by the Royal Society of Canada, the senior Canadian collegium of distinguished scholars, artists and scientists.

Professor Pamela Klassen investigates how nations are not only politically imagined, but also spiritually invented. Focused on interactions between Christian missionaries and Indigenous peoples in early 20th century Canada, her research also considers what remembering this history means for efforts of reconciliation in the present.

Professor Ron Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, is exposing cyber espionage, information warfare and Internet censorship to help protect the rights of citizens worldwide.

It’s like something out of a science-fiction movie — time-lapse photography showing how wounds in embryos of fruit flies heal themselves. The images are not only real; they shed light on ways to improve wound recovery in humans.

“I am interested in how it can be possible for both farmer and farm workers to have dignified livelihoods. There is so much energy now around local and sustainable food. There is an opportunity to support social justice and funnel some of that energy and enthusiasm to farm worker health and justice initiatives.” — sociology PhD student Anelyse Weiler.

A team of physicists at the University of Toronto have taken a step toward making the essential building block of quantum computers out of pure light. Their advance has to do with a specific part of computer circuitry known as a “logic gate.”

An international team that includes astronomers from the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics has discovered a first-of-its-kind “young Jupiter” exoplanet which could help explain how our Solar System formed.

CRANE project director and U of T archaeologist Professor Timothy Harrison leads an international, multi-disciplinary team of researchers in a groundbreaking effort to digitize, visualize, and simulate the birthplace of human civilization.

U of T students connected with the students at the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) in Calicut, Kerala, India. CREST — run by anthropologists — helps members of the former Dalit (untouchable) caste and Adivasi (tribal) youth acquire the additional skills that will make them stronger competitors in the job market.

“Our studies provide the first evidence that people do compare their partner to others with significant consequences for the relationship. People who are low in self-partner overlap have difficulty maintaining positive partner perceptions following threatening comparisons of their partner to others. This may be a key source of stress and conflict in people’s relationships. — U of T psychology PhD candidate Sabrina Thai.

Augmented reality head-up displays (AR-HUDs) that present digital images on windshields to alert drivers to everything from possible collisions to smart phone activity, are meant to make driving safer, but University of Toronto researchers say they are a threat to safety.

A new study of an otherworldly creature from half a billion years ago — a worm-like animal with legs, spikes and a head difficult to distinguish from its tail — has definitively identified its head for the first time, and revealed a previously unknown ring of teeth and a pair of simple eyes.

An archeological dig at the site of Gadachrili Gora, near the village of Imiri in southeastern Georgia, recently unearthed the earliest evidence of domesticated grapes from about 6000 BC, according to carbon-dating analysis.

The genetic makeup of Europe’s current populations is the result of a massive migration from western Asia during the Bronze Age, between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, says a new study of DNA from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia.

“Are they ‘failed galaxies’ that started off well and then ran out of gas? Were they once normal galaxies that got knocked around so much inside the Coma cluster that they puffed up? Or are they bits of galaxies that were pulled off and then got lost in space?” — Roberto Abraham

If Justin Trudeau someday becomes prime minister of Canada, he may owe his success in the blood sport of politics to a media image forged in the rough and tumble of the boxing ring, a new University of Toronto study suggests.

“When you are not getting the attention from the people that you want, our study suggests you are going to evaluate the people who you don’t want that much more harshly.” — University of Toronto psychologist Geoff MacDonald.

The President’s senior advisor on science and engineering engagement, Molly Shoichet, has created a new national research advocacy program to help people outside academia to be aware of the value of university research.

“Cloudy for the morning, turning to clear with scorching heat in the afternoon.” While this might describe a typical late-summer day in many places on Earth, it may also apply to planets outside our solar system, according to a new study by an international team of astrophysicists from the University of Toronto, York University and Queen’s University Belfast.

“It’s unfortunate that Canada is not more familiar with how health care is funded and delivered in Asia, particularly considering that Japan’s universal access system predates Canada’s by a decade.” — Ito Peng

“U of T’s consistently strong performance in international university rankings is a reflection of the excellence of our faculty in teaching and research, the accomplishments of our students and alumni, and the dedication of our staff.” — U of T President Meric Gertler

“It has been a real honour to have the privilege of working with speakers of some of the indigenous languages in Canada, especially with people in some of the Dene communities of the Northwest Territories. It has been a tremendous learning experience for me, and I only hope that I have been able to make some contribution to them as well. This honour belongs with all of them.” — Keren Rice

From turning points in pre-Nazi Germany and the rise of eugenics in Bolshevik Russia, to traces of libel and sedition in 18th-century British literature, three promising humanities projects at the University of Toronto are getting a boost from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Undergraduate students in University College programs including health studies, cognitive science, Canadian studies and UC One, celebrated their research projects from the year at the college’s first undergraduate research poster session.

Plants serving up just the right blend of caffeine and nectar have a better chance of getting pollinated, a University of Toronto study has found, providing yet another fascinating glimpse into the secret lives of bees.

What do butterflies, spiders and lobsters have in common? They are all surviving relatives of a newly identified species called Yawunik kootenayi, a marine creature with two pairs of eyes and prominent grasping appendages that lived as much as 508 million years ago – more than 250 million years before the first dinosaur.

On PI Day, March 14 2015, a team of astronomers expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence into a new realm when they made their first observation, known as “first-light,” with a ground-breaking instrument.

Professor Morley Gunderson has dedicated much of his career toward making his research relevant to public policy. His success has led him to be called the most accomplished and influential labour economist and industrial relations scholar in Canada.